hipped back to Maclaren, for the wind-shield had been opened so
that the driver need not look through the dripping glass and mingling
with the wet gale were snatches of singing.

The chauffeur, partly in understanding and partly from anxiety,
apparently, caught the side of the seat in a firm grip and leaned
forward to break the jar when they struck rough places. Around an elbow
turn they went with one warning scream of the Klaxon, skidded horribly
at the sharp angle of the curve, and missed by inches a car from the
opposite direction.

They swept on with the startled yell of the other party ringing after
them, drowned at once by the crackling of the exhaust. Maclaren raised a
furtive hand to wipe from his forehead a moisture which was not
altogether rain, but immediately grasped the side of the seat again.
Straight ahead the road swung up to meet a bridge and dropped sharply
away from it on the further side. Maclaren groaned but the sound was
lost in the increasing roar of the exhaust.

They barely touched that bridge and shot off into space on the other
side like a hurdler clearing an obstacle. With a creak and a thud the
big car landed, reeled drunkenly, and straightened out in earnest,
Maclaren craned his head to see the speedometer, but had not the heart
to look; he began to curse softly, steadily.

When the muffler went on again and the motor was reduced to a loud,
angry humming, Woodbury caught a few phrases of those solemn
imprecations. He grinned into the black heart of the night, streaked
with lines of grey where therein entered the halo of the headlights, and
then swung the car through an open, iron gate. The motor fell to a
drowsily contented murmur that blended with the cool swishing of the
tires on wet gravel.

"Maclaren," said the other, as he stopped in front of the garage, "if
everyone was as good a passenger as you I'd enjoy motoring; but after
all, a car can't act up like a horse." He concluded gloomily: "There's
no fight in it."

And he started toward the house, but Maclaren, staring after the
departing figure, muttered: "There's only one sort that's worse than a
damn fool, and that's a young one."

It was through a door opening off the veranda that Anthony entered the
house, stealthily as a burglar, and with the same nervous apprehension.
Before him stretched a wide hall, dimly illumined by a single light
which splashed on the Italian table and went glimmering across the
floor. Across the ha